by John Harvey
‘He was also,’ the Chief Superintendent added, speaking for the first time, ‘Lynn Kellogg’s partner.’
‘Partner, as in living together?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah,’ Karen nodded, understanding. Complications, wasn’t that what Harkin had said? Her Assistant Commissioner back in the Met, not a man to use words lightly.
‘The father,’ Karen said. ‘The one you mentioned. He’s been questioned?’
‘Gone AWOL, apparently,’ Berry said. ‘No one in the family claims to know where.’
‘Convenient,’ Karen said tartly.
‘Absolutely. Though this wouldn’t be the first time he’s just walked out without notice, apparently. Last occasion, he didn’t come back for several years.’
‘But we are looking?’
‘Oh, yes, we’re looking.’
Great start, Karen was thinking, number one suspect does a runner and no one knows where to find him.
‘I understand,’ she said, ‘there’s a team assembled?’
‘Yes. The same one, give or take, as was working the girl’s murder.’
‘That’s sorted?’
‘CPS’re still a tad leery, but yes, bar the shouting. Lad called Lee Williams. Picked him up for armed robbery, post office out on the edge of the city. Fell into our lap, really.’ He grinned. ‘Way it happens sometimes, if you’re lucky.’ He waited a couple of beats. ‘I dare say you’ll want your own bagman.’
‘Yes, sir. I might feel a bit marooned, otherwise.’
‘It is a man?’ Berry asked, holding back a smile.
‘Oh, yes,’ Karen said. Mike Ramsden would have been quick to take a swing at anyone who called him anything else.
‘There’s a press conference in forty minutes,’ the ACC said, ‘and I’ll want you there. Any problems?’
‘None at all, sir,’ Karen said.
Media interest was widespread. The killing of a police officer, a woman officer especially, was still rare enough to be big news. The nationals were there in force, print and TV news. The room was packed, close to overflowing. After giving the bare details of the shooting, the Assistant Chief Constable spoke of the determination of his officers to bring the perpetrators to justice.
‘To this end,’ he said, ‘Detective Chief Inspector Shields, from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command of the Metropolitan Police, will be assisting in the investigation.’
Karen looked up with a half-smile which was captured by a dozen cameras and reproduced by sources as diverse as the EuroNews television channel and the local Ilkeston Advertiser.
The ACC spoke of the great sense of loss felt by the Force at Detective Inspector Kellogg’s death, and went on to outline the qualities and characteristics she had brought to the job.
‘Lynn Kellogg,’ he said, ‘worked her way up through the ranks, always exhibiting a combination of resourcefulness and intelligence, leavened by good humour and common sense. She was, as she proved on numerous occasions, an extraordinarily brave officer, second to none in her dedication and commitment to the highest standards of the force, and it was an honour to have served with her as a member of my command.’
As Karen watched, a bulky, broad-shouldered man, quite dishevelled, clothing awry, lurched up from one of the rows near the back of the room and, shouldering bystanders aside, pushed his way out through the rear doors.
‘It is the firm determination,’ the Assistant Chief concluded, ‘of every one of us on this platform, and of every officer in this force, to bring those responsible for this heinous crime – the shooting of an unarmed officer in cold blood – to justice as soon as possible.’
When Resnick had finally returned from the hospital in the early hours of the morning, he had stumbled around the house blindly, throwing open doors to rooms he barely recognised. Once, in the bathroom, he caught sight of himself in the mirror, shaggy haired, unshaven and hollow eyed, without knowing who he was. In the kitchen, he found the sections of the stove-top coffee pot on the drainer and started to reassemble them before giving up, the task too great.
Lynn.
Lynn.
The word stuck, like something vast and indigestible, in his throat, and he thought that he might choke.
Without his knowledge, time passed.
The cats, who would normally have fussed around his feet, steered clear, as if aware of his distress.
Marooned in the living room, he found his way falteringly to the shelves holding the stereo and pulled a CD out from the rack, but left it unplayed.
‘You want me to meet you at the station?’ he had asked.
And then her voice, jarred out of focus by the background noise of the train. ‘No need. I’ll get a cab.’
No need. No need.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Sure.’
Oh, Christ! It came to him like a knife blade slipped cold against the heart. If he had gone, if he had gone . . . if, instead of listening and accepting what she’d said – pleased to hear it really, if he were honest, half-pleased at least, no need to get up from his easy chair and venture out into the relatively cold night air, no call to stop listening to Brookmeyer’s sour trombone relishing the chords, the melodies of ‘There Will Never Be Another You’ – if instead what he had done – as in the first flush of their relationship he would have without fail – was to have hurried from the house to the car and made sure he was at the station well before the train arrived, waiting at the head of the stairs and gazing into the mass of passengers as they bustled towards him, seeking out her face, the smile that his presence would produce when she saw that he was there after all, the look of pleasure that would become a kiss, an embrace, her arms, her body, clinging to his – if he had done all that, Lynn would most likely be alive now.
But . . .
No need. I’ll get a cab.
You’re sure?
Sure.
Oh, Jesus! Sweet, sweet fuck! What had he done? What had he failed to do?
He stood there, numb and shivering, lost in the centre of the room, while grief shocked through him like cold waves breaking over his battered heart.
Karen had spent the afternoon and early evening taking soundings, getting her bearings. She spoke briefly to the SIO in charge of the case Lynn Kellogg had been working on immediately before her death, the double murder out at Bestwood, wondering if there might be any connection, then pulled together as many as she could of the team which had investigated Kelly Brent’s death – Anil Khan, Catherine Njoroge, Frank Michaelson, Steven Pike. She had them take her through the events of the shooting, the accusations made by the victim’s family, the circumstances leading, haphazardly, up to Lee Williams’s arrest.
After reviewing what was so far known about Lynn Kellogg’s murder, she sat in the canteen with the young PC who had been the first officer to arrive at the scene, still shaken by what he had found. Then, on a borrowed computer, she studied a map of the specific area, the narrow, winding road – little more than a lane – which led off the main Woodborough Road towards the house where Kellogg and Resnick had lived – and where she had died.
Two shots.
Head and heart.
A professional hit, Karen thought. Paid for, organised, preordained. Either that, or blind luck. That close, she reasoned, and given a steady hand, it would have been difficult to miss.
Time would tell.
She resisted several offers of dinner in this restaurant or that in favour of room service at the hotel, amazed as ever how it can take the best part of an hour for most self-respecting kitchens to rustle up a toasted cheese sandwich. Her room was small and neat and clearly not designed with a near-six-foot woman in mind; no way her feet weren’t going to stick over the end of the bed and she had to bend almost double to get her head under the shower. And whoever had decided a bright raspberry bedspread adorned with cream squiggles went with bright purple curtains, biscuit-coloured walls and a ruby-red carpet, needed, she thought, to resit her NVQ in interior de
sign. But at least, as the hotel literature proudly proclaimed, it was only two minutes’ walk from the railway station. Handy, if she changed her mind.
From tomorrow she had been promised a serviced apartment with a fully equipped kitchen, an LCD digital television, wireless broadband and breathtaking views across the city.
She could scarcely wait.
She’d phoned Mike Ramsden earlier and given him the good news: there was a train out of St Pancras at 6.35 that would get him into Nottingham at 8.29. The first meeting with the inquiry team was set for 9.00 a.m.
‘You know what you are, don’t you?’ Ramsden growled.
‘Aside from your boss?’
‘Yeah, aside from that.’
Karen laughed. ‘See you tomorrow, Mike. Best have breakfast on the train.’
All those thoughts rolling round in her head, she didn’t reckon on getting to sleep easily, and she was right. After fifteen minutes of restless rolling and turning, she threw back the covers, splashed cold water on her face, rinsed her mouth, pulled a stiff comb through her hair and put on a sweater, jeans and padded jacket. New Balance trainers on her feet. Two minutes to the railway station was just about right.
The driver at the front of the short line of cabs was sitting with his door open, reading through the paper for perhaps the fourth or fifth time and listening to the local radio station.
Karen gave him the address and climbed into the back. Just time to adjust her seat belt before they pulled out on to Carrington Street and the bridge over the canal. The same journey Lynn Kellogg would have taken the night she died.
Tape was still stretched across in front of the house, preserving the scene. The house itself was dark, the curtains partly drawn across, the faintest of lights showing through from one of the rooms at the rear.
The taxi had disappeared from sight.
There were few signs of life from higher up the street.
The sound of traffic from the main road seemed more distant than it was.
Karen zipped her jacket tighter and started to walk slowly towards the house, then stopped. Someone was standing at one of the upstairs windows, looking down. A man’s shape in silhouette, bulking large against the glass. She could just see the outline of the face, the faint pale blur of skin. She stood there for a moment, looking up, then raised a hand, as if in salute, and turned away.
She picked up another taxi easily enough on its way back into the city. In her room up on the fifth floor, she sat on the bed, slowly drinking a vodka and tonic from the minibar, and thought about the man in that house alone, trying and failing to feel her way into his mind, what he must be thinking, going through.
When her head finally touched the pillow, she fell, almost immediately, to sleep.
25
Mike Ramsden’s train was on time. He arrived at the Central Police Station with anger still buzzing inside him after reading the newspaper account of the fatal stabbing of a young PC, who had been called to an incident early the previous morning and attempted to restrain a man who had already attacked two members of the public with a knife. Stabbed in the neck and the shoulder, his protective vest had been to no avail; less than three years in the service, he left a young widow and baby behind. All this at seven in the morning, a nondescript shopping centre in a nondescript town. What the fuck, Ramsden thought, was this fucking world coming to? His bit of the world. It was enough to make you weep.
Not that Ramsden was the weeping kind.
Dark eyed, full mouthed, the bridge of his nose angled sharply and tilted to one side from having been broken too many times.
Today, as most days, he was wearing jeans and rarely polished black shoes, a scuffed leather jacket over a grey T-shirt, iron-grey hair in need of a comb. With Karen standing alongside him, smart if slightly dressed down in a plain navy trouser suit and blue cotton top, they looked like some strange combination of Beauty and the Beast.
Karen had been up since before six, going over the notes she had made the day before, making sure the details of the murder scene, the known facts, were clear in her mind. Later that morning she would have to set up the policy log for the investigation, meticulously recording all the lines of inquiry and what she hoped they would achieve. But before that she had to address the team, gee them up and get them on her side. One of Ramsden’s main tasks would be to make sure they stayed there; and if there were any rumblings of discontent to let Karen know so they could be dealt with before they got out of hand.
‘Right,’ she said, stepping forward once everyone was gathered and introducing herself, ‘let’s get down to business. I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp of the basic situation now, but if I’m missing anything, if I get something not quite right, I’m relying on one of you to put me straight. Okay? Preferably in such a way it seems I knew it all along.’
A few smiles, no laughter.
‘So – Detective Inspector Kellogg returned from London on the 20.55 train, which arrived here on time at thirty-nine minutes past ten. She took a taxi from the station to the house where she lived with Detective Inspector Resnick, arriving there between ten and fifteen minutes later which puts it at ten fifty, ten fifty-five. She pays the driver and crosses towards the house, goes through the front gate and starts along the path towards the front door and that’s when she’s hit twice from close range, both shots almost certainly fired by someone who had been waiting at the side of the house.
‘Alerted by the sounds of gunfire, Resnick runs out, calls emergency services, administers CPR. DI Kellogg is taken to hospital by ambulance and pronounced dead, without regaining consciousness, soon after arrival.’
There was silence in the room.
‘All right,’ Karen said, ‘Anil, you’ve been liaising with Scene of Crime.’
A little self-consciously, Khan got to his feet. ‘There’s not a great deal, ma’am, I’m afraid. Not so far. Two cartridge cases were recovered from close to the corner of the building. One of the bullets, presumably the one which struck DI Kellogg in the head, was found on the grassed area at the front of the house. It seems to have ricocheted back from the low brick wall between the front garden and pavement. They’ve all been passed on to the Forensic Science lab at Huntingdon.’
‘Any idea when we might get anything back?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Okay, chase it up, will you?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And Anil . . .’
‘Ma’am?’
‘Less of the ma’am, if you don’t mind. It makes me feel like your granny. Boss, will do.’
Khan nodded, his blush evident, no matter the natural shade of his skin.
‘Anyone have anything else?’ Karen asked, looking round the room.
‘Cigarette ends,’ Pike said, ‘three of them. Further back down the side entry. There’s no way of knowing if they were left there by the gunman or not.’
‘They’ve not been left by either Resnick or Kellogg?’
Pike shook his head. ‘Neither of them smoked, boss.’
‘How about footprints?’ Ramsden asked. ‘Anything there?’
‘One partial, that’s all. The entry’s gravelled over, and anyway there’d been hardly any rain that day, just a shower, so the soil was pretty dry. Scientific Support said not to hold our breath.’
Karen glanced down at her notes. ‘What’s this about an abandoned car?’
‘Peugeot 307 hatchback, boss,’ Khan said. ‘Stolen from a car park out at Arnold earlier that evening. By the leisure centre. The tax disc missing when it was found, plus there were a lot of scratches down the near side, as if it’d taken a turn too sharp and maybe run up against a wall. It could have been used as a getaway car, exchanged for another that had been stashed in advance. Quick out of the city from there, M1’s not so far away.’
‘And this was where?’
‘Old Basford. A little less than a mile away from where the shooting took place. The whole place is a regular warren. Narrow streets, back e
ntries, old works and warehouses, factories, some in use, some not. The car’s being checked for prints, DNA.’
‘Any chance it was caught on CCTV?’ Karen asked.
‘Out by the leisure centre, where it was stolen, yes, pretty good, I’d say. But at Basford, less likely. Patchy at best.’
‘How about closer to the scene?’
‘That’s better,’ Khan said. ‘In the road leading directly to the house there’s nothing. But back on the main road, Traffic have got quite a few cameras.’
‘Okay, let’s check what we can. I know it’s a slow business. Like watching some too-clever-by-half foreign movie without the subtitles. But it has to be done.’
‘Who spoke to the taxi driver?’ Ramsden asked. ‘The one who dropped Kellogg off?’
Michaelson raised a hand.
‘Anything useful?’
‘Not really, no. Some suggestion that he saw a car parked further along from where he dropped DI Kellogg off, but he was unclear. All over the place, really.’
‘Then let’s have him in again. See if we can’t straighten him out. Jog his memory.’
‘Right.’
‘And let me know when it’s happening, I might sit in.’
Michaelson didn’t know whether to be pleased or concerned.
‘The same with the neighbours,’ Karen said. ‘Let’s double back, take a second crack. It’s not as if, as I understand it, there are that many along that particular stretch of road and they can’t all be tucked up in bed early. Someone must have heard or seen something.’
Murmurs of agreement, the small sounds of officers restlessly shifting position; they were tired of just sitting, anxious to be getting on.
‘All right,’ Karen said. ‘One thing seems clear. This was no random shooting, no robbery. This was cold-blooded murder. Assassination, if you will. Lynn Kellogg was deliberately targeted and what we have to find out is why.’
‘Too bloody right,’ somebody said.
‘The answer might be found in the cases she’s been involved in, recent or in the past. Someone bearing a grudge. Which brings us – I know, I know – to the death of Kelly Brent, whose father, apparently, made various wild threats and accused DI Kellogg of being instrumental in his daughter’s death. Obviously we need to talk to him as soon as possible, and the fact that he’s dropped out of sight makes that all the more urgent still. So let’s redouble our efforts to bring him in. Check all his contacts, relations, whatever you can. But . . . but . . . while that’s going on, let’s not get carried away into thinking if we find him we get a result. Let’s look at those other cases DI Kellogg had been working, dig around, find out what we can.’
